Power Supply or Mother Board dead? How do you figure? Dell 8100 dimension

I have a p4 dell 8100 dimension. The power supply won't come on but if I order a power supply it will be over $100 bucks. I've found out the dell 8100 use a special type of power supply with two motherboard connectors. (16 and 24 pin)

What I want to know is before I sink $100 bucks into a new powersupply is there someway I can test the mother board using another power supply? I just want to check out the MB to see if it's fried.

The hard drive works since I hooked it up to another computer and was able to get all my info off of it.

Sometimes a dead motherboard will prevent a power supply from turning on (ATX specifications). The only way I can think of to really know if its the MB or the PSU is to get another known working PSU and try to power up the PC with it. Obviously if it works, its the PSU. Otherwise is likely the board..

Ops I mean burnmarks on the motherboard, not CPU. It's also good to check that another component isn't causing the power failure, make sure to only have the CPU,RAM,VIDEO in the motherboard. I've had NIC's and Modems especially that burnt out and stopped the PC from powering up.

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You could also try using a multi-meter to test the power supply. If I remember correctly (for standard ATX anyway) it will put out 15 volts even when the system is off. You need to check the pin configuration for your particular model.

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cKdiscipleCommented: 2004-11-05

several ideas.

First take the power supply out of the case, plug it in, turn it on, and test it with a volt meter. If it's dead, you'll know right away.

Second, take all the cards and excess drives out of the computer, run it with only the power supply, motherboard, hard drive, and ram. If it powers up, its a hardware conflict.

Third, if you suspect that it IS the power supply dead, you can take a phillips to it and open it up and check to see if you notice any burn marks or destroyed components.

BTW is your comp still under dell warranty? If not, there are plenty of alternative power supply solutions out there. Cheaper than $100 bucks. However if it IS under warranty, make sure they don't jip you out of your money. Argue with them if you have to. :)

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